ALAO News

President's Report

Lois Szudy (Otterbein College)
President

My Last Report As President

This year has gone by very quickly and much has been accomplished due to the exceptional members we have in ALAO. I am continually impressed and very appreciative of everything that our members do to make ALAO a vibrant and successful organization. I have enjoyed my time as President, but look forward to turning the President’s gavel over to John Burke at the board leadership retreat in June.

Congratulations to the newly elected members of the ALAO board and to the new interest group officers. We are pleased that you are willing to help out this fine organization. Thank you also to the individuals who ran for office and were not elected. We appreciate your willingness and interest in ALAO. Please continue to find ways to become involved in ALAO – we need you. In addition, we should all show our appreciation to the outgoing board members, whose last meeting is during the June retreat. This includes Past President, Cliff Glaviano; Membership chair, Aimee DeChambeau; At large Board members, Mary Jane Horn, University of Toledo; Jeanne Langendorfer, Bowling Green State University; and Cindy Kristof, Kent State University; Diversity Committee Chair, Rajinder Garcha, University of Toledo; and Research & Publication Committee Chair, Lesley Jorbin. In addition, several of the interest group chairs, co-chairs, and appointed positions will be stepping down. I appreciate everyone’s efforts. You are all GREAT!

The ALAO Executive Board met on April 22. Some of the topics discussed include

A report about the “Futures Initiative” from OCLIS and a discussion about possible ALAO involvement in this initiative.
A discussion about the need to continue the board position for a liaison with the ALA Councilor from Ohio – we decided to add this to a future agenda so we have more time to think about the ramifications of this position.
A talk about the issue of “Listservs” – we agreed that the board list and the membership list should be housed at Clearlight and coordinated by the webmasters, but that lists for the Interest Groups would best be handled individually by each Interest Group. We also discussed automatically adding all new members to the member listserv, so that everyone will eventually be a member of this list and can receive timely information about the organization.
A debate about the continuation of the Public Relations Committee. We decided that we needed to coordinate this with membership and that it actually was part of the bigger picture of needing to continually update the board manual/bylaws. Therefore, we plan to discuss it further at the retreat.
A discussion regarding the agenda for the Board retreat and we gave John Burke ideas of what to include.

I want to extend a special thanks to Carol Wittig, Newsletter Editor, who will be continuing to serve as Editor for ALAO next year even though she and her husband are moving to Belgium. This is a really long-distance relationship!

I am excited about next year and continuing my involvement as Past President. I would strongly encourage any of our members to consider becoming more involved with ALAO this coming year. Whether you become more active in the Interest Groups, attend (or better yet, present at) a workshop or annual conference, offer your opinions via a listserv, provide the support for other members of your library staff to attend or be involved, agree to serve on a committee, or run for an elected office, your assistance is always appreciated and necessary.

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Dates to Remember 2004

DATE	EVENT
June 7 & 8	Tech Connections 5 Conference @ The Ohio State University
July 30	Nomination Deadline: Ohio Library Outstanding Support Staff Award
July 30	Nomination Deadline: Ohio Library Outstanding Supporter of Support Staff Award
August 1-3	Ohio Library Support Staff Institute @ Ohio Northern University
August 15	ALAO Fall Newsletter Submission Deadline
September 15	Fall ALAO Newsletter Published
September 15	Continuing Education Grant Application Deadline
October 1	Early Bird Registration Deadline: ALAO 30th Annual Conference @ Sinclair CC
October 22	Registration Deadline: ALAO 30th Annual Conference @ Sinclair CC
November 12	ALAO 30th Annual Conference @ Sinclair CC

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ALAO MEMBERSHIP -- Have you renewed yours?

Still a bargain at only $20.00 per year. Support ALAO and renew today:
www.alaoweb.org/membership/join.html

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ALAO 2004 Election Results

Cliff Glaviano (Bowling Green State University)
Immediate Past President

In case you haven’t heard, and news does travel fast, the new officers for ALAO for 2004 have been elected. The membership submitted approximately 250 ballots (not all voted for all offices: actual count in the Vice President race was 246 votes). Please join me in congratulating:

The ALAO membership owes special thanks to these folks and to Kathy Dobda, Cleveland State University; Kevin Furniss, Denison University; George Klim, OHIONET; Kathy Kobyljanec, John Carroll University; Alisa Mizikar, Wittenberg University; and Rob Withers, Miami University, who ran for office this Spring.

What I mean by this is: ALAO can only maintain its high level of service through the Annual Conference, the ALAO Newsletter, the forthcoming ALAO Database, and the ALAO website because ALAO members allow their name to be placed in nomination for elections, volunteer for service on the Program Committee, volunteer for service to an ALAO Committee or Interest Group, or serve as a campus liaison for ALAO. Annual dues are low, conference and workshop fees are low and folks like those above in bold are why.

While you are saying, “Thank you,” please also consider making part of your professional service the volunteering of your time and efforts to ALAO. It’s refreshing, rewarding, and you get to know those special colleagues better: the ones like you who volunteered to serve Ohio librarianship through ALAO service.

Other thanks for the elections are due to Joyce Harris, Ohio College Association, for UPSing some late ballots up to Bowling Green that allowed a three-way tie for a 1st Year Board position to be resolved by the membership rather than by coin toss. Thanks also to Susan DiRenzo, University of Akron, for making my life much easier, the toll on trees much less, and the burden on USCargo lighter by making the ALAO election web page a reality.

Now off the soap box and so much for the election report … What I also wanted to say was a big, “Thank you,“ to all of you who have put up with me the past couple of years as ALAO President and Past President. I certainly didn’t get as much accomplished as I thought I could, maybe nobody does. Thank you for your patience.

In the Fall, I begin a one-year term as BGSU Faculty Senate Secretary, which should make most of my Tuesdays in 2004-2005 really interesting. In 2005, I hope to get a BGSU Faculty Research leave to do some scholarly whatchamacallit related to naturalist Edwin Way Teale’s papers at UConn – something that will also make life interesting … but, you know what they say about a bad penny always showing up … maybe like me and ALAO. You never know. Finally, thank you yet again!

2004 ALAO Annual Conference Update

Academic Library Association of Ohio
30th Annual Conference, November 12, 2004
David H. Ponitz Sinclair Center -- Dayton, Ohio

The 30th Annual Conference: “ALAO at 30: Positioning Our Libraries, Positioning Ourselves” will be held in Dayton at Sinclair Community College’s David H. Ponitz Sinclair Center on November 12, 2004. Our keynote speaker, UC Santa Barbara University Librarian Sarah Pritchard, and a host of exciting presentations, poster sessions, exhibitors, and awards await those attending the conference.

Registration materials and conference information are available now on the conference web site: www.alaoweb.org/04conf/. An early-bird registration rate is available for registrations taken before October 1, 2004. The registration deadline is October 22, 2004. The conference hotel is the Doubletree Dayton and ALAO has reserved a special rate for conference attendees.

Thanks go out to the 2004 Program Committee for their continuing efforts: Betsy Blankenship (PR Coord), OSU-Marion; Susan Direnzo, University of Akron; Anne Fields, Ohio State University; Kevin Furniss, Denison University; Rajinder Garcha (Chair, Diversity Committee), U. Toledo; Deborah Carter Peoples, Ohio Wesleyan University; Judy Perella, Ashland University; Karen Plummer, University of Akron; and Diane Schrecker, Ashland University.

Continuing Education Grants Awarded

The ALAO Professional Development Committee awarded Continuing Education Grants this spring to Abbie Basile, Brian Gray, and Frances Yates.

Abbie Basile, until recently a Reference and Instruction Services Librarian at Ohio Dominican University, received the grant to partially cover her tuition for a course at Franklin University that will help her meet her program requirements and enhance her work at Ohio Dominican University and on the OhioLINK Marketing Task Force.

Brian Gray, a Library Associate, Senior, at the University of Akron, plans to use his award to partially cover costs to attend the 2004 Special Libraries Association Conference: Putting Knowledge to Work. He has been invited to participate as a student representative on the Student & Academic Relations Committee, and hopes to increase support for greater student participation on this Committee.

Frances Yates, Education Librarian at Miami University, will use grant to partially cover tuition for an online course, “Teaching Practices in Humane Education.” This supports her work as the Education Librarian at Miami and fits a “growing emphasis on service learning and corollary to that is the topic of character education, with which humane education fits as a curricular topic.”

The Professional Development Committee, consisting of Elizabeth Burns, Jo Ann Calzonetti, Mary Jane Horn, Cindy Kristof, Ann Watson and Jeanne Langendorfer, offers congratulations to these recipients!

Continuing Education Grants are awarded twice each year, in spring and fall. The next application deadline is September 15, 2004. An application form is available at the ALAO web site at www.alaoweb.org/forms/ce-grant04.pdf.

Traveling to New Orleans: The Experience of Presenting at a National Conference

Photo of Panel Discussion, New Orleans Conference

From left: Barbara Stauffer, Carolyn Margolis, Susan Brandehoff, Betsy Blankenship.

Thanks to ALAO, I was able to travel to New Orleans in May and co-present a panel discussion on libraries and traveling museum exhibits. I was invited by Susan Brandehoff from the American Library Association, Public Programs Office to be part of a proposal submitted to the American Association of Museums Annual Conference on the success of the collaboration between the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and the ALA Public Programs Office to create the exhibit “Listening to the Prairie: Farming in Nature’s Image”. I would be representing a library that successfully competed for the traveling exhibit.

Our proposal, “Bringing Museum Exhibitions to Libraries: An Innovative Partnership Reaches Communities Nationwide” was accepted and we planned our presentation through e-mail and some conference calls. It was interesting to organize this, since we were from Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Ohio! My co-presenters were Carolyn Margolis, Chief of Exhibit Design and Development, National Museum of Natural History; Barbara Stauffer, Exhibit Developer, National Museum of Natural History and Susan Brandehoff, Program Director for Traveling Exhibitions and Media Projects, ALA Public Program Office. Fortunately for me, I had taken lots of pictures from when my library hosted the exhibit in 2001. I was able to create a slide show and talk about installation, local add-ins, companion programs, local funding and all the challenges we faced before and during the exhibit. I created a handout to give to attendees on how to have a successful exhibition experience. We each spoke for about 10-15 minutes and answered questions afterward. We had a good number attend our program and we were pleased, since there were thirteen scheduled programs to choose from!

I was able to visit the Exhibit and MuseumExpo2004 area, which was HUGE! I met several directors of different museums and even found some library people and learned a lot about other traveling exhibitions and the museum field in general. I attended programs on the art of saying thank you and museum exhibits created by small museums for small museums. I was struck by the lack of significant interaction and collaboration between libraries and museums in general. No book titles jumped out at me at the bookstore and very few programs (except ours) included libraries as an audience to market exhibitions to. I actually mentioned it to the Chair of the Small Museum Committee, because I believe that libraries and local and small museums can benefit from each other. Libraries can host exhibits from museums to enhance their own programming efforts on campus at a reasonable cost and small museums can use academic libraries to find speakers and expert knowledge, display their collections and raise awareness of their own museums. I sensed that many small museums had never considered the idea.

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate on the panel. I was very honored that I was asked to represent the library field for this presentation. I gained valuable presentation experience and made lasting contacts at ALA and the National Museum of Natural History as well as meeting new people at the conference. I even met a director of a small museum from Panama! I came back with lots of ideas and, what is even more exciting (for me) is that Susan liked my handout and will be posting it to the ALA Public Programs Office website for future traveling exhibition applicants to use.

Without the continuing education grant from ALAO, I would not have been able to attend and stay an extra day. Thank you, ALAO, for this wonderful professional development opportunity! It was an experience I will remember for a long time!!!

Legislative News

National Legislation Day

ALAO Government Relations Team member Ann Watson and Legislative Advocate Travel Award recipient, Joe Salem were among the twenty Ohio librarians who participated in ALA’s National Library Legislative Day in Washington, DC on May 3-4. State Librarian Mike Lucas lead Ohio’s delegation in its lobbying efforts and Assistant State Librarian Bill Morris served as the state’s coordinator.

On May 3, the Ohio delegation joined librarians from all over the country in an all-day briefing. The sessions offered tips on effectively communicating with legislators and legislative aides as well as information on a number of issues of interest to libraries throughout the country including full funding of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), increased funding for the Improving Literacy through School Libraries program, support for the Government Printing Office and continued no-fee access to government information, and adding privacy safeguards to the USA PATRIOT Act.

On May 4, much of the Ohio delegation met over breakfast sponsored by the Ohio Library Council and then met with Senator Mike DeWine before heading to individual meetings with legislators representing their institution’s districts. Throughout the day, Ohio librarians met with twenty Congressmen or their Legislative Aides and received positive feedback on many of the individual library initiatives throughout the state as well as the cooperative services for which Ohio libraries are so well known.

ALAO representatives were able to reinforce the importance of LSTA funding by highlighting its role in developing the popular OhioLINK “Chat with a Librarian Service.” The delegation was also successful in stressing the efficacy of OhioLINK in stretching federal and state funding through existing collaboration among higher educational institutions as well as through the upcoming pilot projects to include public and K-12 libraries in the central catalog.

The Government Relations Team sponsors the Legislative Advocate Travel Award annually. Any member of the ALAO Legislative Advocate Network interested in applying for the award or in participating in next year’s National Library Legislative Day should consult the Government Relations Team’s Web site at www.alaoweb.org/legislative/adv_trav.html for more information.

Ohio Library Support Staff Institute (OLSSI) News

OLSSI Accepted into Section Status by OCA

At the April 14-15th Ohio College Association (OCA) 2004 Spring Presidents' Forum and Annual Meeting, the Ohio Library Support Staff Institute (OLSSI) joined ALAO and several other statewide academic organizations when it was accepted into "Section" status by the Ohio College Association.

The OLSSI is the working name for a group of individuals who volunteer each year to present a multi-day residency program for library support staff. ALAO has been a strong supporter of OLSSI; several ALAO members were integral to the formation of OLSSI, and other ALAO members have attended and benefited from the OLSSI workshops. This new affiliation will permit OLSSI to call upon the OCA Central Office for assistance with services such as a permanent mailing address and phone number, a central membership database, bookkeeping, auditing, and mailing.

Since 1867, the OCA mission has been "to promote the cause of higher education within the State of Ohio and to encourage inter-institutional communication and cooperative endeavors on the part of both independent and public non profit colleges and universities." Supporting academic cooperation through OCA Sections has been an important and long standing tradition of the OCA.

Early work by the OCA Library Section (now known as ALAO), composed of academic library personnel, resulted in the establishment of the Ohio College Library Center in 1970. Now known as the Online Computer Library Center, Inc., OCLC has evolved into an international network of library services that has far exceeded the visions and expectations of those pioneering OCA planners.

OLSSI: A Unique Learning Experience

The third annual in-residence Institute will be held August 1-3, 2004 on the beautiful campus of Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. See the OLSSI flyer for complete details & registration information or visit their website at www.olssi.lib.oh.us.

Interest Group News

Curriculum Materials Interest Group

CMCIG Spring Workshop: Rediscovering Our Collections | Friday, May 7, 2004

The Curriculum Materials Center Interest Group spring workshop was hosted by coordinating committee member Sara Bushong and her Curriculum Materials Center staff Eileen Kuan Veng Bosch, Gaynelle Predmore, and Victoria Nye, at Jerome Library, Bowling Green State University. Activities included throughout the day included a panel discussion, CMCIG business meeting, tour of Bowling Greens Curriculum Materials Center, tour of Bowling Green’s Technology Resource Center and Production Lab, and a guided tour of Mazza Museum, International Art from Picture Books at the University of Findlay.

Mary Cummings (Shawnee State University) led the panel discussion, "Weeding Our Collections," and discussed her experiences with using the CREW method for weeding. A CMCIG business meeting followed and included updates on the 30th Annual ALAO Conference, CMCIG list serv, web page information, and the Praxis II Resource Page hosted by Ann Raney (University of Dayton). Following the business meeting, attendees were treated to afore mentioned tours of Bowling Green State University facilities.

The CMCIG workshop feature presentation was a docent guided tour of the Mazza Museum, International Art from Picture Books at the University of Findlay. Five different galleries were toured and detailed by our guide. Of particular interest to many in attendance was a detailed gallery which highlighted art of Ohio natives.

Special thanks go out to the CRC staff at Bowling Green State University for their work hosting this event. This workshop had attendance from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. We are a growing interest group and invite you to consider attending our sponsored conference session at the Sinclair Center this November and our workshop next spring.

Instruction Interest Group

About 20 members of the Instruction and Distance Learning Interest Groups gathered at the Ohio State University’s Science and Engineering Library for an exciting and educational workshop on Learning Objects. Using David Wiley’s definition of a learning object as “any digital resource that can be reused to support learning,” OSU librarians, Karen Diaz and Nancy O’Hanlon sparked participants’ interest in this new way of learning.

Karen Diaz and Nancy O'Hanlon, presenters at IIG Workshop

Their careful distinction between digital “assets” and learning objects was helpful to those in the audience who were new to the concepts. Learning objects are created purposefully for learning, and include components of teaching, feedback and testing, and can be used in different contexts, times and places. Digital assets are just one aspect of the resource. Live examples of learning objects and repositories were demonstrated, including some savvy resources outside of academia (e.g., CNN/Money’s financial tool “Money 101” money.cnn.com/pf/101/). Software programs for creating learning objects were highlighted. The idea of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was introduced. Participants spent the afternoon using wireless laptops for hands on activities evaluating learning objects, repositories and creation tools.

The value of the workshop is evident in the following sampling of participant comments:
- “These ladies are fantastic!”
- “Great program! I have lots of new ideas to take home.”
- “Great to have a chance to apply the material!”

The energy generated after four hours of learning will be funneled into the IIG-sponsored panel session on the application of learning objects at the upcoming Annual Conference. If you have developed or are developing a learning object that you would like to share at the Annual Conference, contact IIG co-chairs:

Support Staff Interest Group

The Support Staff Interest Group held its annual spring workshop, "ALA ... Support Staff ... the Here & the Now,” on May 24 at Ohio Wesleyan University. 77 individuals were in attendance. Our featured speaker was Carol Brey-Casiano, President-Elect of the American Library Association and Director of the El Paso (TX) Public Library, who gave an informative presentation and opened the floor for a lengthy question and answer session.

Following lunch, participants chose from three breakout sessions: (1) "Bend & Don't Snap?: Flexibility in Tough Times!" with Dr. Linda Dobb, Executive Vice-President, Bowling Green State University, (2) "How to Be in Two Places at One Time!" with Louis Mays, Librarian, Southern State Community College, and (3) “Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks” with Patty Bisker, Training/Help Desk Manager, Ohio Wesleyan University.

Great thanks are due to Judy Orahood (OWU) for making local arrangements, to Angie Lorensen (Northwest Ohio Regional Book Depository) for coordinating registrations, to Douglas Morrison (Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute) for envisioning this workshop and serving as liaison to our keynote speaker, to Gaynelle Predmore (Bowling Green State University) for assembling the workshop packets and creating the ballots, to Gaynelle, Judy, and Mary Ayres (Southern State Community College) for liaising with our breakout speakers, to Angie, Mary, Gaynelle, and Martha Kluth (University of Akron) for their creation of a gift basket for our speaker, to Karen Ketchaver (John Carroll University) for creating and analyzing the evaluations, and to the entire SSIG Program Planning Committee.

The Support Staff Interest Group is still accepting nominations for the 2004 Ohio Library Outstanding Support Staff Award and the Ohio Library Outstanding Supporter of Support Staff Award. Registration materials are available at www.alaoweb.org/comsigs/ssig/awards.html. The deadline is July 30, 2004. Please take this opportunity to recognize outstanding individuals in academic library work.

Ballots were collected at the workshop to decide the next SSIG Secretary/Chair-Elect, who will join incoming SSIG Chair Angie Lorensen as an officer of the interest group. Results will be announced in the next ALAO newsletter. SSIG is always looking to add to the strength of our efforts on behalf of academic library support staff by seeking new members for its Program Planning Committee. Please contact Angie Lorensen at asloren@bgnet.bgsu.edu to volunteer for this opportunity.

I would like to offer my personal thanks to the many hard working members of the Program Planning Committee for all of their creativity, dependability, and passion for the work of ALAO and SSIG. I consider my experiences with them over the last two years as chair and chair-elect as a gift beyond measure.

Technical Services Interest Group

It is with great regret that due to myriad scheduling conflicts we are forced to cancel our workshop on the topic of educating, training, and recruiting technical services librarians, which we had planned for June 3rd, 2004. We are still interested in this topic and we hope to have an opportunity to present this program sometime in the future.

We look forward to seeing you at the 2004 Annual Conference at the Sinclair Center in Dayton, where we will have our next business meeting. As I step down as co-convenor I'd like to welcome Jody Perkins, Metadata Librarian at Miami University, aboard as our new co-convenor. It's been a great pleasure to serve you as co-chair of TSIG, and I wish the best of luck to Jody and to Julie Gammon, our continuing co-convenor. If you have any ideas for TSIG please share them with Julie and Jody either directly or through the TSLibrarians list (tslibrarians@listserv.kent.edu).

Feature Stories

Ohio's School Libraries are Closing the Gap

Ohio’s state and federal legislators, educators and librarians met to Celebrate Ohio’s School Libraries on Wednesday, April 28 at Ohio’s Statehouse. In an event sponsored by the Ohio Educational Library and Media Association (OELMA) with INFOhio, a statewide cooperative school library and information network, school library accomplishments were recognized and acknowledged.

The Honorable Arlene Setzer, Ohio House of Representatives introduced Dr. Ross Todd, School of Communication, Information & Library Sciences at Rutgers University. Dr. Todd, a noted international researcher on school libraries and student learning, discussed the Ohio Research Study: Student Learning Through Ohio's School Libraries. (For more detailed information about the study go to: www.oelma.org/StudentLearning/default.asp)

The Ohio Educational Library Media Association (OELMA), in collaboration with Leadership 4 School Libraries, received a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) through the State Library of Ohio to undertake the research project on how school libraries help students learn.

According to Dr. Todd, “With the increasing focus on standards-based education, accountability, performance excellence and school improvement, this study is certainly timely for Ohio because the results provide direction and recommendations for professional practice and educational policy development, tools for school librarians to chart impacts on learning and areas for further research.”

In addition to celebrating the role of school libraries in helping students learn, the event also recognized INFOhio’s 2,000th Automated School Library.

The Honorable Doug White, President, Ohio Senate, introduced the Great Oaks Institute of Technology and recognized them for their dedication to high quality library media services. Great Oaks was selected to represent the 2000+ Ohio school libraries who are successfully implementing INFOhio’s library automation software.

Ohio school libraries have more than 40 million books, and they continue to add to these print resources every year. Library automation is necessary to organize the materials already in school libraries, to teach students how to effectively access both print and electronic information, and to allow access to other automated libraries.

This Celebration emphasizes the role that school libraries play in the education of Ohio’s students. According to Andy Wick, Mount Gilead High School Senior: “The library has helped me immensely during my tenure at school. Just recently, the librarian taught us to take notes and because of it, the last term paper I wrote almost wrote itself. The note taking skills not only help me now, but will continue to do so in the future.”

People and Library News

Clark State Community College

Carol Brown Wittig, Library Director, resigned effective May 26th and is in the process of relocating to Mons, Belgium, where her husband will be stationed at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) for the next four years. She will continue as ALAO Newsletter Editor and will also periodically submit articles for the ALAO newsletter.

Ohio State Marion/Marion Technical College

Betsy Blankenship, Director/Head Librarian, Ohio State at Marion/Marion Technical College Library, co-presented "Bringing Museum Exhibitions to Libraries: An Innovative Partnership Reaches Communities Nationwide" at the American Association of Museums Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo 2004, May 6-May 10, 2004, New Orleans, LA.

Ohio State University

Rocki Strader, Electronic Resources Manager, OSU, is the 2004 recipient of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) Horizon Award, which pays travel and accommodations to the annual conference to be held in Milwaukee this year.

Karen Diaz and Nancy O'Hanlon, OSU Instruction Librarians, have published IssueWeb: A Guide and Sourcebook for Researching Controversial Issues on the Web (Libraries Unlimited lu.com/showbook.cfm?id=4928). IssueWeb provides instruction on techniques for researching controversial topics on the Web and evaluating Web information sources. Forty “Issue Briefs” include background on the topic, outline key controversies, and suggest search terms for use in search engines and other databases. The Web sites listed in the Briefs are divided into the following categories: reference (starting points), law / legislation, news, data, and advocacy. Appendices of think tank and opinion magazine sites provide additional sources for extending research on controversial topics.

Shawnee State University

The Clark Memorial Library at Shawnee State University is co-sponsoring a community-wide reading initiative with the Portsmouth Public Library to encourage reading and literacy. The book selected in the "One Book, One Community" project is Sharyn McCrumb's "She Walks These Hills." Book discussions and associated events are planned for the Fall and an author visit is slated for Spring 2005. For more information: www.onebookscioto.net.

The University of Akron

Aimée deChambeau and Michael Tosko both recently earned the title Scholarship of Teaching, Assessment, and Learning Fellow for completing the requirements of the 2003-2004 University of Akron's Scholarship of Teaching, Assessment & Learning Symposium conducted by Dr. Thomas Angelo.

About the ALAO Newsletter

ALAO Newsletter Publication Information

The ALAO Newsletter is published four times a year by the Academic Library Association of Ohio, in September, December, March, and June. It is made available as a benefit of membership. The purpose of the ALAO Newsletter is to advance the goals of the organization and serve the membership.

Submission Guidelines:
We reserve the right to edit for space and clarity. Please send text copy to the Carol Wittig in electronic format, preferably as an electronic mail Word document attachment or within the body of an email message. Include your name as you wish it to appear. If you are past deadline, PLEASE email Carol Wittig!

The Academic Library Association of Ohio assumes no responsibility for the statements and opinions of the contributors to this publication. Editorial views do not necessarily represent the official position of ALAO.

In This Issue

ALAO News

President's Report

My Last Report As President

Dates to Remember 2004

ALAO MEMBERSHIP -- Have you renewed yours?

ALAO 2004 Election Results

2004 ALAO Annual Conference Update

Continuing Education Grants Awarded

Traveling to New Orleans: The Experience of Presenting at a National Conference

Legislative News

National Legislation Day

Ohio Library Support Staff Institute (OLSSI) News

OLSSI Accepted into Section Status by OCA

OLSSI: A Unique Learning Experience

Interest Group News

Curriculum Materials Interest Group

CMCIG Spring Workshop: Rediscovering Our Collections | Friday, May 7, 2004

Instruction Interest Group

Support Staff Interest Group

Technical Services Interest Group

Feature Stories

Ohio's School Libraries are Closing the Gap

People and Library News

Clark State Community College

Ohio State Marion/Marion Technical College

Ohio State University

Shawnee State University

The University of Akron

About the ALAO Newsletter

ALAO Newsletter Publication Information